


I Can't Fix This Without You

by BlueJay26



Series: Marvel Angst [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hurt Tony Stark, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Serious, Survivor Guilt, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony-centric, dont read this if wandavision broke you, or do this cant hurt more than that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:21:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29896233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueJay26/pseuds/BlueJay26
Summary: Tony grieves for all the people he lost.I wrote one for Peter, I had to write one for Tony
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Avengers Team
Series: Marvel Angst [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2198136
Kudos: 8





	I Can't Fix This Without You

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: There isn't a happy ending to this - it's just me going "Tony had to mourn for five years, what if I wrote that?", also all the warnings that come with focalisation and Tony Stark
> 
> If anyone wants more, I'm writing one for Wanda, and I do take requests either in the comments or over on tumblr :)

Some days Tony puts his head on his work table and weeps. Not just because he dragged the kid into a battle far too big for a teenager. Not just because he can see Steve's grief at losing Bucky, knowing it's partially his fault they had so little time together. Not just because Nat slinks around, looking miserable and guilty and less like herself than she has in years. Not just because every so often the 'ghost hunter' will show up in the news and then no one makes eye contact with anyone else for a week. Not just because he saw the resignation on Strange's face. 

Mostly because, in Peter's last moments, he looked to Tony, as if Tony could magically make things better. Just like he always did when Pete made a mess. But not this time, and that causes a fresh round of sobs. Less than failing the universe, failing every single person on earth, he's failed the kid. The kid who trusted him enough to stow away on a spaceship, a goddamn spaceship of all things, and try and help.

All he had got for his troubles was death, and every time Tony remembers the despair in his eyes, something inside him breaks a little more. All the hope bolstered by the suits and the Avengers and Pepper and the kid slips further from him every day. And he doesn't know how to handle it. Earth's greatest guardians are a pack of beaten dogs with wounds that widen every day, no matter how much they lick them. People deserve better than an alcoholic, and his guilt ridden, grieving friends as protectors.

He keeps a pile of stuff in the garage, memorabilia, he thinks bitterly, and every so often Pepper will tell him to clean it up, or he'll catch a glimpse of it while looking for a drill bit he dropped three weeks ago. Pepper doesn't know what's under the reflective panels and the spare engine parts. And Tony will never tell her, she's already doing so much. Organising rebuilding, funding rescue ops, trying to reconcile people to this new world of too many jobs and not enough people instead of the other way around. 

So no, he won't tell her about a vibranium shield, stripped of paint, or the box of wigs that Nat had given him, silent refusal of any further missions. A stack of PHDs, abandoned because their owner was meditating somewhere in the Caribbean. A spare eye patch. A new red leather jacket, with lines of code looping around the inside of the wrists. A pair of red and blue pyjamas, begged from May because he needed something of the kid's. Two helmets, side by side, one with wings, the other horns. (Because no matter what happens, Tony won't forget what Loki did for Bruce.) An unstrung bow. A metal arm, built from schematics Shuri had lent him. A bottle of detergent, because what could possibly embody a magic man and his Cape.

A tiny replica of Tony's helmet, because how else can he show that in losing them he lost a piece of himself? That they'll never be the same without their best and brightest members? If you remove their suits, Steve and Tony are just two angry boys ready to lay into the other. Without Bruce and Clint, Nat's reverted to her old self, uptight and never seen in one place for too long. Without a teenager always asking questions and an AI smitten with her, there is no life left in the Tower. Tony can feel them drifting away, and nothing he does is bringing them back. 

He doesn't know what to do, except bury himself in his work and donate shitloads of money to those struggling. He's started manufacturing free prosthetics for anyone who was hurt in the War, and even anyone who was hurt before then. All of his interest is diverted into funding projects designed to make the world more livable. Just a year ago, he'd been all about making the world a better place. Now he can't imagine a world where the word 'better' isn't met with humourless laughs. 

He wonders what Harley's doing these days. He never managed to check if he survived the snap, cowardly enough to want to avoid more evidence of his failure. What is it with him and taking good kids and screwing with their lives? 

He brushes his fingers over a pair of web shooters that had never travelled to the garage. He never told the kid he loved him. The most sentimental he’d let himself get had been with that certificate. It hadn’t even been for something real. A cover story. And Tony had said  _ I’m proud of you, son. _ Like he had the right to go around claiming other people’s kids. Doesn’t matter that their fathers had left or were dead, the only things he’s good with are computers. He should have stayed in his lane, instead of recruiting a teenager to fight his battles. 

_ Wouldn’t Dad be proud if he could see me now? I managed to fuck the world over worse than he ever did, and ruined so many children’s lives. More than him. _ Tony can’t seem to get rid of thoughts these days. They can’t even be called intrusive thoughts, because that implies they’re occasional. It’s almost enough to send him back to the bottle.

_ Almost. _ He doesn’t, remembering throwing every last bottle away before Peter’s first visit to the lab. He could go up to their apartment, but Peter’s face flashes into his mind. Yet again.  _ He would lose the little respect he had for me. _

Then again, it doesn’t really matter, does it? Because Peter’s gone. He isn’t coming back. It’s been months. 153 days, but Tony isn’t counting. He had been. He used to mark the days off on a little paper calendar. He used to think that if anyone could figure out a solution to the predicament of being disintegrated, it would be that smartass doctor and Spiderkid. 

As the days went by, as weeks turned into months, Tony started losing hope. Maybe they really were gone. Are gone. Maybe the infinity stones didn’t absorb their consciousnesses. Maybe Tony is, for the last time, really and truly alone, deserted and left behind. No one’s fault but his own.

He’s barely keeping it together. Never fallen so far before. A shell of a man, clutching a pair of web shooters, curled over his workbench. Weeping.  _ It’s not fair. He deserved better. _ But life isn’t fair. If it was, he would be gone in Peter’s place. But life isn’t fair. So here he is, trying to close a gaping wound with his fingers and nothing else.

Cap can’t even look him in the eyes these days. He pretends it’s because he’s busy, overworked, covering for Nat, but Tony knows it isn’t that. Maybe it’s so he doesn’t say anything he’ll regret, maybe it’s that Tony only awakens bad memories. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Tony doesn’t do much other than speculate now. It’s possible Steve hasn’t even realised his visits have been decreasing - maybe he really is overworked. But Tony is a paranoid mess.

How could he not be? He’s never been the most trusting, but after everything that’s happened, he sees shadows even when every single light is on. Because maybe he is to blame for all of it. He had no right to drag so many people into his battles. Even if some of them did come of their own free will. Logically he knows he couldn’t have stopped them from joining him, and that Thanos had nothing to do with him. But his brain refuses to stop replaying scenes, showing him exactly where he went wrong.

Sighing, Tony turns back to the algorithm he’s supposed to be rewriting. Nothing’s going to change. He can have a breakdown later. For now, he’ll distract himself with work. And try to ignore the ghost of Peter that lingers in the room.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, here's a tissue


End file.
